My first Final Fantasy Experience – FFVII, to some one of the greatest games known to men. And goats. As they play games too you see. Regardless of the goats, It was great, but I felt in places it was a little, tough – I was lost, clueless as to where to go next. And for the most part, I had to spend a massive amount of time ‘levelling’ up as I just couldn’t hack the battles. Next on the agenda was FFVIII. I was a little underwhelmed by the change in artistic direction and the situation the characters were in I didn’t connect with. I got FFIX basically to complete the PSone trilogy – turns out it’s better than the other two. Put together. Oh yes.

Artistic Majestic-ness.

Well maybe it’s not as astounding as VII, but still this is good stuff. You begin the game as Zidane, a plucky young fellow with a tail. You and your performing band of thieves are plotting to kidnap a Princess, Princess Garnet. Except whilst Zidane is the alleged main character – you begin playing the game as Vivi, a mage. Vivi is the bastard child of Star Wars’ Jawa’s and Tolkien’s Gandalf. But he’s so darling, you just want to eat him he’s so sweet. The great thing about this RPG is it’s fun, everything about it is fun, which at the end of the day is hat you want in a videogame.. The art is wonderful – from character designs to the worlds and the fusion of olde worlde feel with ethereal technology. And it’s realised with the best visuals to be milked from the PSone’s 32-bit udder. Ethereal is also a term that could easily describe the awesome soundtrack.

Crossing over the line.

The story is quite lovely, with each character having their own plotline, their own reason for doing what they are doing. For example, Vivi – he’s on a journey of self discovery to find out who and what he is. Captain Stein is on a mission to ‘rescue and protect’ Princess Garnet, despite the fact that she doesn’t need or indeed want to be ‘rescued’ and that she is faking a kidnapping, even though her ‘kidnappers’, Zidane and co actually tried to kidnap her. Or so it seemed. But the main plotline is that of a clichéd one – stop Queen Brahne’s reign before the evil forces she’s utilizing can fulfil their wicked plan. But stick with it as the beautiful presentation and typical Final Fantasy humour prevail and make the story and its charming characters shine through, enough so that you feel attached and care. At least Vivi instils a distinct level of sympathy. The lovable glowy-eyed goober.

Sameplay…sorry, Gameplay.

In terms of gameplay, it’s typical RPG fare or more to the point typical Final Fantasy gameplay. The combat is a simplistic but intuitive turn based affair, but it still requires skill – skill in terms of strategy and tactics, knowing hat weapons and attacks to use on which enemies and as always is quite satisfying. As far as inventory management etc, it’s functional with delightful little things that make the initially overwhelming RPG-ness of such things as equipping items to boost stats easier. By this Im referring to the ‘Optimize’ option which automatically assigns weapons and armour and such to a character to optimize their performance. Sure some may say that defeats part of the fun of the game – finding your own combinations of items, but ‘stat-tweaking’ doesn’t tickle everybody’s fancy. Control wise, it’s typical Playstation FF, with X being your main weapon and Triangle opening the Menu whereby all the bulk of the games info and stat tweaking is managed.

A Conclusion, you say?

Well, bottom line is, as a games player I heartily recommend this to you. Unless you dislike RPG’s, in which case it wont be for you…but due to it’s optional simplicity with the main RPG elements, it may be endured more than other’s of the genre. Buy it. If you can, I hear it’s quite rare these days. It’s a wonderful, immersive, charming epic of an RPG. And that’s final.

IX was my favourite too, buy a long shot! (though it is the only one I actually finished). Mainly I put it down to the setting being more my thing and the characters so well realised (if a little cliched). Looks incredible for a ps1 game too.

Every now and then I load FFIX at the last save point just before the back to back final batlles - the music kicking in is just brilliant. Mind you I can't beat them anymore so its just all about listening to the music and surviving as long as possible.

That was why i liked it personally. It was the first RPG I ever played, and it felt so different from every other game. It felt like a game not aimed at 13 year olds. But IX does look excellent, I might buy it.

Compared to VII and VIII I thought IX was way to easy. It wasnt difficult to max out your characters or there weapons and hitting the final boss for 9999 hp a time surely made it a short battle. I just never felt like I put in much with 9 as I did with the other 2.

Compared to VII and VIII I thought IX was way to easy. It wasnt difficult to max out your characters or there weapons and hitting the final boss for 9999 hp a time surely made it a short battle. I just never felt like I put in much with 9 as I did with the other 2.

i probably remember IX the least of any FF game. But when I do remember bits they are absolutely charming. I particularly enjoyed the opening.

I really didn't have too much time for the lead character though, although Tidus was worse I think mostly because he had such an annoying Californian voice. Voice off option as compulsory in all RPG's please.

Despite my confusion over IX's plot (something about a crystal??) I do remember that on finishing it i was a quite sad and immediately started a new game.

4,5,6 - I played on emulator and put about 15 hours into each. Didn't finish them but they were loads of fun

7 - I never even made it out of Midgard. (but that was down to not getting a chance to play it for about 3 months then not being able to get back into it)

8 - Has the least sensible story line of anything ever. And the Draw system was aces for customisation. Even if it slowed the pace of the game. Draw... Draw... Draw... Draw... Draw...

9 - Never played. Will have to look out for a copy after reading that there review though.

10 - Gets a lot of stick but I thought it was a decent game. It's very linear... Like every other Japanese RPG... It has a cheesy storyline and punchable characters... Like every other Japanese RPG... But it had some great boss encounters, a lot of variation in the random battles, some lovely graphics and I really liked the sphere grid for leveling up. It felt like you actually had some control over how the characters skills developed and there was loads of scope for customisation. - Also, there were some excellent old-school dungeon crawl bits to find just before the final battle with Sin.